Speeding - good news and bad news.

Dr McCulloch,

It's bad enough today with people being distracted momentarily by speed cameras - but to have everybody _constantly_ focusing on their speedometers and not on the road would lead to a rather obvious disaster.

The government need to learn that speed is blatantly not the primary cause of accidents and stop interfering with our drivers/riders tried and tested methods of prioritising tasks for maximum safety. The whole "speed kills" farce has been disproven time and time again, and it's time they changed the record.

Continuing to prioritise revenue over safety as they do nowadays will bite them hard in the future, mark my words. People are catching on now that it really is a load of cobblers.

Originally Posted by mpaton2005

It's bad enough today with people being distracted momentarily by speed cameras - but to have everybody _constantly_ focusing on their speedometers and not on the road would lead to a rather obvious disaster.

This is assserted time and time again, but there's really no need to 'constantly focus on one's speedometer' in order to regulate speed to either an imposed speed limit or some judgement about what is safe. Checking instruments every few seconds is all that's required and it needn't act as a distraction from attention to the road and the environment. I would not be surprised to find that the safest and smoothest riders (you know, the ones on the white Pan Europeans) check their speeedos quite frequently.

As for this old revenue vs safety nonsense, anyone who thinks that raising revenue through speed cameras is the whole dastardly plan needs to do some more critical thinking. If the aim was to raise revenue from transport there are much simpler methods. Increased VAT on tyres for example.

Finally re speed killing or not, try this simple experiment. Find a nice strong wall with a good run up. Walk briskly up to the wall until you bump into it (no wimpy cheating by putting hands out to stop). Now do the same at a brisk jog. After first aid has been administered, try sprinting. After consciousness returns get on a push bike and repeat at say 30mph. Of course going faster doesn't CAUSE accidents all by itself but it does make the consequences more serious.

And no, I'm not 'against' speed I'm just against sloppy thinking and weak attempts to justify practices (such as riding my bike at high speed) that really have no justification in a logical sense.

Still better not to bump into things in the first place!!!!

[Biker Biggles]

I think we should revert to the man with a red flag walking in front of every vehicle.That way every time you hit that wall it would'nt matter.
On a more serious note I went to Mallory Park a couple of weeks ago and had to go through the road works at Leicester where the "specs" cameras are enforcing the 40 limit.It was clear that some drivers were concentrating rather too much on something other than the road ahead and the direction of their vehicle.I assume they were looking at their speedos.
There is a kind of paranoia that is instilled by this kind of surveillance,and I found myself looking at speed more than I should too,because the risk of getting done for slipping up is so high.

[northwind]

Originally Posted by mpaton2005

It's bad enough today with people being distracted momentarily by speed cameras - but to have everybody _constantly_ focusing on their speedometers and not on the road would lead to a rather obvious disaster.

What's wrong with all these drivers that they can't keep a steady speed without staring at their speedos? The only time this becomes a problem is when people treet the speed limit as a target, not a limit, and stay at it all the time- and that's purely a driver attitude problem.

[Biker Biggles]

Northwind,you miss the point.It's not that (most) drivers can't keep a constant speed roughly at the correct level,it's the paranoia brought about by constant surveillance.This causes people to become obsessed by the speedo and thus fail to observe the road ahead as they should.

[northwind]

Still an attitude problem... And IMO still caused by limit targeting. It's a pretty sorry indictment of the state of driving today that people have so much to be paranoid about on the speed front.

[Biker Biggles]

You might have the makings of a good argument if you could convince me that our speed limits were all justified and set at the correct level.In real life they command little respect from most road users because they are usually inappropriate for the time,place and conditions.(Often set too high in bad conditions!)

[northwind]

Very true, that's the other side of the coin. I usually end up saying that in these threads at some point, ignoring the 85th percentile rule undermines any attempt to enforce limits as people won't accept them as being safety limits.

[embee]

stop it with this self righteous stuff and join us in the real world.

The reason people concentrate on their speedo and not on the road is because speed (oops, sorry, safety) cameras take no prisoners, they just dole out a £60 fine and 3 points, and most road users simply don't want that, so they're going to concentrate on their speedo. End of story.

We are constantly being preached at that "speed kills", what with the adverts on TV showing kids being run over at 40mph etc, and that drink-driving kills, we are NOT preached at that bad driving kills, that lack of attention kills, that aggressive driving kills, that poor driving skills kills, that driving too fast and too close in bad weather kills. Just look at how many people still use mobile phones and don't wear seat belts.

I've nothing against most current speed limits, nor against cameras in appropriate places, but don't be surprised that most people concentrate more on their speedo than on the road ahead where there are speed monitoring systems in use.

I do, I'm sure most drivers do. Add to that this "zero tolerance" stuff from various Chief Constables and what do you expect?

I've managed to keep a clean licence for 30+ years, and I'm not going to let a momentary lapse of attention to my speedo spoil it, just so long as the kids who run out in front of me realise that too. Hey, after all if I'm not exceeding 30mph it must be safe, yes???